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Scholarship
March 29, 2017
Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers
- Author
- Smith, Christian with Melinda Lundquist Denton
- Publisher
- Oxford University Press, New York, NY
- ISBN
- 019518095X
- Table of Contents
-
ch. 1 Two Baptist girls
ch. 2 Mapping the big picture
ch. 3 Spiritual seekers, the disengaged, and religiously devoted teens
ch. 4 God, religion, whatever : on moralistic therapeutic deism
ch. 5 American adolescent religion in social context
ch. 6 On Catholic teens
ch. 7 Adolescent religion and life outcomes
Concluding unscientific postscript : observations and implications of NSYR findings for religious communities and youth workers
App. A Race, class, gender, etcetera : demographic differences in U.S. teenage religiosity
App. B Survey methodology
App. C Interviews methodology
App. D Teen religious denominational category codings
"Soul Searching tells the definitive story of the religious and spiritual lives of contemporary American teenagers. It reports the findings of the National Study of Youth and Religion, the largest and most detailed study of teenagers and religion ever undertaken. Based on a nationwide telephone survey of teens and their parents, as well as in-depth face-to-face interviews with more than 250 of the survey respondents, Soul Searching shows that religion is indeed a significant factor in the lives of many American teenagers. Chock-full of carefully interpreted interview data and solid survey statistics, Soul Searching reveals many surprising findings." Combining a national overview with an insider's view of teenage religious and nonreligious perspectives, Soul Searching provides not only an unprecedented understanding of adolescent religion and spirituality but also, because teenagers may be bellwethers for future trends, an important window through which to observe and assess the future of American religion. (From the Publisher)